50 THE STORY -OF THE BIRDS. 
the student of birds there is shown much that implies 
that ornaments and their display are large factors in 
courtship. 
Whether or not choice always is influenced by or- 
namentation when the female selects a partner for the 
season, it is certain that it is often present and flaunted 
in a very conspicuous way. 
There are some striking evidences of appreciation 
of ornament among birds. The female “ widow ” 
bird is said to desert her mate if he loses his orna- 
ments. Whiddah bird is the proper name, but 
“widow” bird is colloquial, doubtless on account of 
the resemblance in sound. It is not likely that her 
disposition to make a “grass widow” of herself in 
this way has anything to do with it. Other instances 
might be noted, but perhaps those circumstances con- 
nected with the courting tactics of the bower and 
garden birds, where neat runways, green, moss-cov- 
ered, gardenlike little lawns, ornamented with vari- 
ous bright objects, enable a very plain bird to show 
his sweetheart pretty things, and to soften her feel- 
ings by the esthetic influence of these and by pretty 
mazy motions over, through, and near them. 
Sometimes it is the female that is attractively col- 
ored, whereupon she does the wooing—making a dis- 
play of her pretty parts, performing antics, wearing 
the spurs, and doing the fighting and screaming in a 
very modern fashion, while her literally henpecked 
husband does the incubating and rears the family 
with a meekness that should inherit all the dry 
land of the planet. The new woman was here in 
